Steven Douglas Maloney

Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

In talking to students about papers this semester, I’m wondering about their writing priorities.  They are so obsessed with PLANNING their papers before ever committing a word to the page.  They are in fact, unanimously convinced that the best way to write a paper is to write it once and then to edit it to make sure that their grammar and spelling is correct.  

I’m going to provoke a fight in saying this, but the best writing method is not massive planning, outline, paper, spell and grammar check.  I’m a big fan of the following:  just write.  And then realize that what you have written is actually terrible.  So write it again better.  Repeat terrible paper recognition.  Repeat improvement.  Repeat cycle until paper is due.  

Why is this better?  Because students, as of now, are not interested in revising their IDEAS because they have a phobia of ripping out parts of their papers and redoing them.  ”Rewrite” is taken as a sign of failure, rather than a matter of course.  

I wonder if part of the aversion to revision–and the writing method we teach students–is actually a throwback to typewriters.  Stay with me here.  Back when people typed papers on typewrites, mistakes in writing early drafts cost paper and ribbon.  A priority was placed on doing papers in a way where you maximize getting as much right the first time as possible.  

Now that we have computers, we may overvalue pressuring a quality first/only draft.  The computer makes typeface the only non-perishable resource a student has in their writing process.  My conjecture here is not that students shouldn’t make good outlines or do competent pre-planning.  Ideally, they’d do all phases with the greatest attention and care.  But given that students have papers on deadline, I wonder if we do not teach them to economize poorly because we convince them that revising is the most time-consuming part of the writing process when it is not.  Writing the first draft is the most time consuming process, and we actually appear to teach students to extend that portion of the process out as agonizingly long as possible.  

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m writing this post on my first day’s use of Google Chrome. It’s given me reason to use my office computer, and I have to say – I really like it so far.  I can’t wait for the Mac version.  I already like the navigation bar better, and I love the frequently visited startup boxes. Anyone else tried it?

I’m trying to get back in the habit of posting something every weekday, but today I am too far behind trying to get my section done for a law review article I am working on, so I’ll try and put something interesting up tomorrow. Go see The Dark Knight, in case you happen to be the person who hasn’t done so already.

It is a great thing that Americans are so interested in their Presidential election.  According to Pew, there is record engagement levels in this election.  However, I will not miss the writing in the form of “opinion columns” that we have to endure in election years, which somehow seem extra senseless when campaigns are at fever pitch.  Take, for example, EJ Dionne’s opinion piece in The Washington Post. I have no idea what he is on about for the entire article, but his last paragraph reads conclusively. 

In the campaign so far, John McCain has been clinging to the old economic orthodoxy while Barack Obama has proposed a modestly more active role for government. But the economic assumptions are changing faster than the rhetoric of the campaign. “Reality has broken in,” says Frank. And none too soon.

How do we get to this amazing conclusion?  To support such a statement, we would need some sort of analysis of the policies and attitudes of Obama and McCain about their likely economic policies as President. We would also need some sort of very cogent analysis on why these differences represent something truly different and why something truly different is necessary. We don’t get that in this article. What we get instead, is a pretty benign claim that lending has been under-regulated, something which everyone agrees about and Dionne points this out, citing multiple sources. Then, Dionne makes the assertion that since lending is under-regulated, therefore all (or if we are being charitable, a preponderance of) public-private relationships since the 1980′s have suffered from deregulation. This is an extremely tenuous claim that is simply asserted and supported by a statement from one member of the House of Representatives.  But we’re not done, from there, Dionne asserts that somehow it follows that GLOBAL FREE TRADE has also been bad for America due to lack of regulation -also only supported by a quote from the same House Member. Don’t get me started on how the title radically over-blows the statements in the editorial, which in and of themselves, outrun the analysis to support them by a country mile.

Why does columns like this upset me? Because there are interested young people, who, like myself at that age, read this stuff and cannot pick out the problems with the argument. These young ones are rewarded for at least reading the Washington Post op-ed section, go join a political party, are patted on the back for being an active citizen, and have no idea that they in fact are laying a very difficult ideological foundation for themselves to escape from and rejoin the ranks of reasonable human beings.  They are taken in by  arguments do not follow one another, appear in the form of assertion, are woefully imprecise to the point of being beyond useless, and pass as journalism that our citizens should take their cues for practicing political judgment from.  

Also a tip, if you are going to write something, make sure you have something worth saying. When you write an article where it seems like you want to get to the conclusion: Obama=awesome and McCain=dinosaur, the you don’t really have a great subject to write a five paragraph essay about. First, you are taking your premise as given, and second, you are likely to just sort of say “here’s some stuff… therefore I’m right in my opinion.”  Write about SOMETHING, think it through, and then come to a conclusion. THEN, go back and rewrite the article so that you can structure to be more about informing the reader about the topic rather than what your first draft is likely to be, which is informing YOURSELF about your conclusion (which no one but yourself cares about).  I’m not trying to imply that EJ Dionne doesn’t care about writing, I’m trying to imply that EJ Dionne doesn’t care about the economy. He cares about Barack Obama becoming President. The very structure of his essay lays out his priorities in way that is substantially more clear than his structured(or should I say “structured?”) arguments about “Capitalism’s reality check.”

What is the “weak man” fallacy? Well, you can read it explained here:

a person sets up the opposition’s weakest (or one of its weakest) arguments or proponents for attack, as opposed to misstating a rival’s position as the straw man argument does.

The Chronicle of Higher Education seems to have a nice example with this article on violent video games.  Rather than argue about violence in video games with, I don’t know, Dr. Craig A. Anderson of Iowa State University, whose APA fact sheet seems to include reference to many peer-reviewed articles showing empirical studies on the subject spanning many years, the author picks on Senator Clinton of New York and Mayor Bloomberg of New York City. They of course, do not have the best reasons of all the people who hold the same point of view.  

But wait, there’s not only a “weak man” fallacy, there is also a “straw man” fallacy. Did you catch it? Go ahead and look, I’ll put it below the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a game for you: find all the things on the front page that aren’t about sports or are advertisments:

I’m making some of my student’s red George Orwell’s "Politics and the English Language" this Tuesday.  Here are some highlights from this wonderful essay. 

“It (language) becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are
foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier to have foolish
thoughts.”

 

“Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless,
imitative style.”

 “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the
defense of the indefensible.”

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say?  2. What words will express it?  3. What image or idiom will make it clearer  4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?  And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly?  2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"

(a follow up from the preceding paragraph)  "But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble.  You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in.  They will construct sentences for oyu — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent  — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.  It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear."